


Taking Care

by Herk



Series: The Life and Love of Mycroft Holmes [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Complete, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, It's enough to unsettle Greg so you've been warned, M/M, Mentions of a pretty gruesome crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:31:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6038112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herk/pseuds/Herk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's the British Government, the British Secret Service, he freelances for the CIA, and now he's also Greg Lestrade's boyfriend. Three of those four are easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Care

**Author's Note:**

> I realized that so far I have almost always focused on Greg being an awesome boyfriend. Well it's about time to show a bit of balance, isn't it?

Mycroft and Greg lay in Mycroft’s bed both happily exhausted. Their relationship was still relatively new, objectively speaking, but it felt right on so many levels that Greg could hardly believe their first date had been only two months ago.

“My?”

“Yes, Gregory?”

“I was wondering, if you could clear out a drawer or something for me? It would make it a lot easier for me to stay over spontaneously if I had some clothes here.”

The British Government looked thoughtful.

“I don’t want to intrude, so if you don’t want that, it’s fine by me. I just thought, I’d bring it up.”

“I have contemplated the issue,” Mycroft admitted. “But I wasn’t thinking about a drawer exactly.”

“An old box in the corner?” Greg grinned. “Would be fine by me too.”

“Gregory, how would you like moving in with me?”

“Are you serious, Love?” Greg couldn’t quite believe the turn the conversation had taken.

“I am. Think about it - you already spend as much time here as possible. You have your own key ever since our second date. Given our schedules I highly doubt we would see much more of each other than we do right now but it would make things a lot easier. And I certainly have the space.”

“That’s a big leap for you, My.”

The elder Holmes smiled. “I took the leap when I sent you the rose, Gregory. Everything else has just been the logical consequence.” His hand gently stroke down his lover’s side. “You don’t need to decide now. I understand that I pretty much ran you over with that proposal. Just know that the offer stands, you can have a drawer, a wardrobe, or fifty percent of the house whenever you want.” There was a slight pause before he quietly uttered his next words. “You already have my heart after all.”

 

Mycroft Holmes came home relatively early. Seeing that his lover wasn’t there, he decided to call in for some food. Gregory would probably appreciate a hot meal waiting for him when he came home and he was far too distracted to spend his time in the kitchen. After ordering something for himself and the DI to arrive at the policeman’s expected arrival, he sat down with his laptop in his study to prepare for a meeting the next day. In his experience the head of the Moldavian secret service was a difficult man to deal with and he wanted to make sure that his informations were as up-to-date as possible.

Lestrade arrived about half an hour after the food but good insulation had insured his dinner was still hot enough to enjoy. He ate about half of it before putting the rest away for later. Mycroft was obviously still busy, judging by the light and the closed door of his study. An ideal evening to watch some telly or listen to a bit of music in the living room without driving his partner up the walls.

Greg tried to find something watchable but only flipped through the channels aimlessly. There was nothing on that could keep his attention for longer than a couple of minutes. He wandered over to the CD rack and tried to decide what to listen to. But everything was either not fitting his mood at all or threatened to plunge him into a bout of depression. He took a swig from his beer bottle, trying to decide what to do.

Mycroft looked up startled at the quiet knock on the door. He hadn’t locked it but a closed door was a pretty strong ‘do not disturb’ sign. He wondered why Gregory chose to ignore it. A quick glance at the clock told him that the time might have something to do with it.

“Yes?”

Lestrade opened the door slowly, taking a cautious peek. “Hey.”

The elder Holmes couldn’t quite shake of the irritation at this unusual behaviour. Instead of answering, he just raised an eyebrow. 

Greg’s face fell. “I’m sorry, I just… ah, forget it.” He was about to leave again when Mycroft’s voice stopped him.

“Gregory.” The British Government sighed. “You wouldn’t have knocked without a reason. Now do you care to share what it is?”

“I was just wondering if you’re done for tonight. I know it’s silly but… I don’t feel like being alone right now.”

The government official took a last glance at his notes and closed his laptop. “I’m done now,” he declared.

Greg couldn’t quite hide the relief at that decision.

“Why don’t you pick up some music while I pour us something to drink?” 

“Sounds good. Thank you, My.” Greg took just a tiny moment looking at the ‘Orphans’ collection and decided on ‘Bastards’. It was Mycroft’s favourite of the three after all.

Judging Gregory’s mood, Mycroft Holmes decided to pour two generous glasses of whiskey and sat down on the couch instead of ‘his’ armchair. He was joined by his partner while the first notes of Wait’s take on Kurt Weill resonated through the room.

Greg drank from the glass offered to him. The warmth running down his throat burning and comforting at the same time. Setting the whiskey aside on the couch table he lay down on the sofa, putting his head on Mycroft’s lap. When the long, slender fingers started to stroke his hair Greg closed his eyes and very slowly began to relax.

“You’re wrinkling my trousers.”

“Sod your trousers, My.”

The government official put a gentle kiss on Lestrade’s temple. “As you wish.”

Mycroft could have done anything right now from reading to solving crosswords, as long as his left didn’t stop caressing Greg’s head and his tigh remained still enough to work as a pillow, his lover didn’t mind if his main focus was elsewhere. As the CD started to play a whiskey soaked, croaky rendition of ‘Heigh Ho’, he noticed the first tears escaping from closed lids.

“You smoked three cigarettes today.” He observed.

A sad smile tucked at Greg’s lips. “Somehow neither of us ever really manages to quit, do we?”

“So it seems.” Mycroft paused for a moment lost in the music. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Greg swallowed. He knew this would happen and he still had wanted Mycroft’s company. Had craved the contact: the warmth of the leg through the fabric of the trousers, the smell of Mycroft’s cologne, the fingers running through his hair.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it some top-secret bullshit I’m not allowed to know?”

The policeman snorted as he recognized his own exact words, the question he always had to ask his lover before he inquired too vehemently about the other man’s day. “Hardly”

“Then I think it might be wise to follow your own advise on this, Gregory.”

It was a good thing that Mycroft had all the patience he needed. It took Greg until the middle of ‘Books of Moses’ before he spoke.

“I got called in on a new case today. The victim was an eighteen year old boy - a kid really. He was brutally beaten to death, raped with various things beforehand - the broken bottle was still inside him when he was found. It was all I could do not to contaminate the crime scene with my lunch.”

Mycroft’s fingers were still caressing Greg’s hair and although he had his eyes closed, the DI knew that his lover’s focus was now fully on him.

“I had to tell a man and woman today that their son was dead, brutally murdered and have them come in to identify the body. The mother bawled her eyes out. The father was all stiff and unmoving. I’m sure he was affected at least as much as his wife but my suspicious bastard copper’s mind kept asking if maybe he was just relieved that the son was gone. Young gay man of Pakistani background - we’re not sure if there was an anti-immigrant background, a homophobic one, or if it just was some run-of-the-mill psycho. I’m praying for some white-supremacy asshole because that’s the least terrifying option.”

Greg opened his eyes looking up through the tears into his lover’s face, hoping beyond hope that Mycroft somehow could make things better.

“This is the fucking 21st century - how can stuff like this still happen?”

Mycroft took a deep breath. “I’m afraid Gregory that we’ll never rot out the basest, hateful instincts of men - no matter how powerful we are, no matter how far we as a society progress.”

Greg moved and took the glass of whiskey once again, downing the rest of its content in one go. “People suck.”

The British Government was at a loss for words. While he actually agreed with his lover’s assessment, it wasn’t really like the DI to think that way. Greg Lestrade was an eternal optimist when it came to people and their potential. He would have never befriended Sherlock or himself if he wasn’t, let alone work his way into Mycroft’s bed and heart. It almost physically hurt to see his partner like this.

“Hold me, My, please?”

Mycroft put his arms around Gregory, who turned on his side, burying his face in the other man’s waistcoat, and cried.

 

DI Lestrade had had a stressful week at work. Sally Donovan was ill, something that never worked out well. As much as their personal relation had been strained ever since Sally had handed over his ass to the Chief Superintendent over Sherlock, she still was the best damn DS he had ever worked with. The team had to pick up her workload which wasn’t easy at the best of times and this wasn’t one of them. Due to internal restructuring DI Lestrade suddenly had to deal with DCI MacKinnon, a man who fancied himself Greg’s direct superior and obviously didn’t trust him to do his job adequately. With MacKinnon looking over his shoulder constantly, he had to make sure to cross all the t’s and dot all i’s and to hand in all his paperwork as quickly as possible. Obviously the DCI had gone to the “procedure and paperwork is everything” school of policing and Greg began to slowly hate the man. Without Sally to have his back, he had no time to do his actual job of solving crimes and protecting people.

So tonight wasn’t the first day that he’d worked through his lunch break and was staying long hours to get some paperwork of a three year old case in order. Greg didn’t care much for his rank or career prospects but maybe working for a promotion wasn’t such a bad idea if it meant MacKinnon wouldn’t be able to make his life quite so miserable anymore.

“You do realize that your current hours are going against every employment protection law in the book?”

Greg looked up, startled to see Mycroft standing in his office. Usually he heard when someone entered but apparently he was more tired and distracted than he’s thought.

“We are short a couple of people due to illness. Someone has to pick up the slack, My.”

“And that has to be you?”

Greg snorted. “Look who’s talking.”

The government official smiled. “I might push myself too far from time to time, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to look after you properly.”

“I hardly need looking after. This is my job. Sometimes it sucks. It will get better.” Greg leaned back in his chair. “What are you doing here?”

“Is it so hard to believe I just came to take you home?”

“Yes, actually. While I don’t doubt that you are aware of my hours, your own schedule hardly allows for frivolous joyrides like this. Not when the Libyan situation is so close to blowing up.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrowed a bit. He hadn’t talked with Greg about the current crisis keeping him busy. But he shouldn’t be all that surprised. Greg was far more observant than he gave him credit for most of the time.

“I had something I needed to take care of at Whitehall,” he admitted. “This wasn’t much of a detour on my way home. So care to accompany me?”

Greg got up from his chair and walked over for a kiss. “I can’t, sorry.” He allowed himself a short rest against his lover’s shoulder, breathing in the familiar scents, hugging the other man. “I need to finish that up if I want to get anything worthwhile done tomorrow.”

Mycroft sighed. “I was afraid you’d be this unreasonably stubborn.” He put another kiss on Greg’s temple before gently freeing himself from the other man’s arms. He turned around and fished something out from behind the office door. “That’s why I came prepared.”

“Is that curry?” Lestrade’s eyes widened.

“Vindaloo from that terrible little place you are so irrationally fond of. Now why don’t you eat and finish that greatly important paperwork, while I’ll wait over here.” Mycroft sat down in the visitor’s chair and pulled out his laptop to work himself.

Greg sat down and ripped open the plastic bag. “Have you eaten?”

Mycroft didn’t even look up from his screen. “Yes - and if you’re offering to share that glutamate-drained abomination you consider a meal, this will be the last time I ever brought you dinner to work.”

Lestrade grinned at the baseless threat and began digging into his meal before attacking the paperwork with renewed vigour.

 

Mycroft looked up from his book. “You’ve been staring at that page for five whole minutes now.”

Greg furrowed his brow. “Not everyone reads at your bloody speed, Holmes.”

The British Government put his own reading material aside. “You’re average reading speed is about 2.5 minutes per double page, up to 4 minutes when you’re working your way through something difficult. Any more than that and you throw the book aside as ‘unreadable garbage’. And I highly doubt that Val McDermid’s writing is this challenging.” He took a sip from his tea completely unimpressed by his lover’s reaction.

Lestrade put his book down. “I’m just not in the mood for reading.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“Can’t you deduce that, lover-mine?”

Mycroft frowned. “Something is bothering you. It’s not work related or you wouldn’t have picked up a crime novel in the first place, that wouldn’t be much of an escape after all. It’s obviously not trivial or the book would have proved to be a successful distraction. You can almost always lose yourself in Kate Brannigan. Judging by your tone whatever upsets you is connected to me in some way. But I have to confess I’m not aware of any transgression on my part. And I highly doubt you really want me to ‘deduce’ you.”

Greg sighed. “I guess I asked for that.”

“Indeed.”

“It’s just Toby.”

“Your voice makes it very clear that there’s nothing ‘just’ about the situation. Tobias Greyson is your friend, isn’t he?”

“I thought so.”

“What happened, Gregory?”

Greg closed his eyes and sighed. “Apparently anyone who’s nice to me only does so because they are too afraid that the British Government would ship them off to Siberia if they so much as looked at me the wrong way.”

The British Government blinked at that accusation. Then he laughed. “Even if I _could_ simply do that - and I’m not saying I could, our nation being largely democratic and bound by constitutional laws and rules - I don’t even want to imagine your reaction if I tried anything like that.”

Lestrade couldn’t help but smile. “I would kick your ass into the next week. I’m more than capable of fighting my own fights. - But apparently Toby doesn’t think so.”

“He might just underestimate the people you’re dealing with as unreasonable cowards.”

The DI shook his head. “He made it pretty clear that he thought your reach and power were the reason I was attracted to you in the first place.”

Mycroft grimaced in a display of distaste. “I can’t help it if people feel intimidated by me…”

“Oh please - you enjoy it.”

“Well maybe,” Mycroft admitted. “It certainly has its uses. But if I ever thought you would be attracted to my position...”

“Fat chance. I don’t even know what your exact position _is_. Rest assured I’m only attracted to your personality - and maybe your body.”

Mycroft shook his head in slight disbelief. “And god alone knows why.” He got up and walked over to his lover, planting a long and passionate kiss on his lips. “Gregory, I’m sorry that one of your friends has turned out to be an idiot, but if you don’t drag me into our bedroom right now, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

 

Mycroft was a difficult man and he knew it. He was used to keep his heart hidden away. He was used to being in control. He was used to getting his way. And a lot of times he was insensitive to ordinary people’s emotions and needs.

But he also really, really loved Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade.

Gregory was patient and caring and for some reason he had decided that he loved Mycroft with all his faults and idiosyncrasies.

So Mycroft Holmes did his best to be a good boyfriend, a thoughtful lover, a partner worthy of Greg Lestrade.

And some of the time he actually succeeded.


End file.
